backwoodsguitars

allparts.com has pre fretted fretboards 25.5 scale rosewood, jumbo frets. I have used these in the past and they are fairly good. I have only had to level them a bit. I also used a piece of flat steel and a hammer and laid it on the frets and lightly tapped using a carpenters hammer it up and down the board once or twice (just in case) but they arent bad. I am however now learning to fret my own. I am excited about the different scales I can use since stew mac has a wide selection of pre slotted boards. Please learn this skill and dont be scared like I was. After 2 years I am just now learning to do this myself. I wish I had learned in the begining. Backwoods

I am working on my first fingerboard from scratch and I want to use side dots only. Do any of you have any super easy techniques for this as well as suggestions for material. It is rosewood so there will be no finish on it. Backwoods

Sobot, Tung oil will darken the wood. It depends on the species, it usually is subtle but on mahogany it gets fairly dark. You will need to test it on scrap, if you dont have any scraps pull off a control cover and try it in there first. Backwoods

Jay5, How do you a slight hook on those utility blades? Backwoods

Blink, PM me your email address and I will email a full size LP template to you. It has the neck body and headstock in the correct size. Backwoods

Blink, I am glad to hear you made a neck! I cant wait to see the pics. Backwoods

Hello, I say nothing ventured, nothing gained. I you allready have the lumber give it a try. You will only be out of a little time. Backwoods

I have been thinking of making some pickups totally from scratch. I sometimes use white and red oak since they are local and the other times I use maple. I have to use HBs because of the brightness of oak and maple in a neck thru design. I want to try to make my own bobbins out of hardwood. Does anyone have a tutorial on making pups from scratch or possibly a blow up diagram of a "generic" one that I can copy the principal from. I Have found a magnetic wire supplier online but I am curious if any of you use a larger or smaller than normal wire size for an extremely fat sound which I will need for the bright tone wood I use. any reccomended # winds? backwoods

Can you possibly get some flush end nippers/fretwire cutters on them? If you can get them to bite you may be able to back them out. You may be able to get a large phillips with an extremely sharp point to bite enough to unscrew them. Backwoods

Guitarguy, were they specifically for pickups? I am curious what size wire is prefered, if it matters at all. Backwoods

Hello, I am thinking about trying to wind my own pickup and I am curious if any of you have found a less expensive source of wire? I mean something way less than the luthier catalogs. backwoods

Does anyone know what he uses for the metal saddles in his wooden bridges? Does he make them himself or can they be purchased? Backwoods

I did some research, stewmacs fret hammer weighs just under 8ozs. and the one I had been eyeballing weighs 14ozs. I found a 8oz. one today at a import tool supply $4.99. I will try it out and let you know how it works. Backwoods

Hello again, I hope I can get a few more opinions about bolt on and neck thru guitars! Thanks Backwoods

Yes I had planned on hammering in the frets. I know of the epoxy method where you make the slots a little large and then epoxy the frets but epoxy takes quite a while to dry. I wonder if you could put a little cyanocrylate in the slots on each end after installing the fret instead of messing with epoxy. you could hold the fret in place and add a little on the ends of the slots and hold about 30 seconds. Anyone ever tried this?

Westhemann, Do you fret after the board is glued up? also do you hammer them in? Thanks Backwoods

Stickmangumby, Sometimes when all the slots are cut in a fingerboard and the fingerboard is glued on a neck, when frets are installed in those slots. The fret tang is wider than the slot therefore sometimes causing a ever so slight bow, regardless of how the neck is supported, If you were refering to a mechanical means of support such as something placed under the neck while installing frets. This is the theory I have read about, I have no first hand experience about this either but this makes sense to me. If the fret tang is wide enough to be held in the slot then the slot is narrower than the tang. Like I said I have always purchased completed fretboards radiused and fretted all I had to do was glue them down and clean them up very very little. Does someone know of a fretting tutorial? Backwoods

At home depot and lowes they have a hard plastic face/brass mallet with about a 1" face. These look extremely close to the ones selling in the luthier catalogs. I do not know the weight of them but they are about $10 at lowes/home depot and you dont have to pay for shipping and NO waiting. Has anyone ever used one of these for fret work? Have any of you ever made your own fret mallet? Backwoods

Hello, I have been buying completed fretboards in the past and I am wanting to learn to make my own. The completed ones that I purchase are perfectly flat. I have read that fretting a board already glued on a neck can cause bowing. If I fret the boards while they are off the guitar will this stop the bowing from happening. or if the board is bowed from me fretting it will it in turn bow the neck wood when it is glued up. I have never had a fret pop so the boards I have been buying must have been oversize slots with epoxy this must be the reason why they are flat. This has always been the thing to keep me from making my own boards. It has been easier to just purchase the completed boards but I want to further my skills by making my own boards. Backwoods

I agree with that because I feel a set neck or bolt on lets you hear more of the tone from the body wood. On my set necks the only tone you hear is from the neck wood and very little if any from the wing wood. Does this make sense? Backwoods

VanKirk, I hated to lie and not mention the first bolt on(my first guitar ever). I would like to forget about it . It was a disaster it sort of had a tremelo built in the neck if you know what I mean I learned alot about bridge placement on that one too . It was a first attempt though. The 2nd bolt on I built after I had built a few neck thrus and the 2nd bolt on turned out fairly well The more I think about it I really love to build guitars especially the neck thru styles. I build mine from scratch and I can glue up the "blank" and glue on the fingerboard and shape the headstock before I even decide what shape the bouts will be. It is nice to be able to start before final details are decided. If I dont build what I like I may become inclined to hate it and it will become more like a job. They say if you like what you do you will never work a day in your life. Backwoods

Hello, I have been going over the pros and cons of different styles of guitar building. I have made mostly neck thru guitars and one or two bolt ons. I am thinking about trying to make this my full time income and I have been contemplating making bolt ons because in theory they would take less time because I can buy necks. But I think I can build neck thrus better and not take THAT much more time (mostly waiting for the glue to dry). I prefer the neck thrus because with differing colors of wood laminated together on the neck or at the heel or wing/body joints, it looks awsome and they sound great I think. But I am trying to look at this from a business perspective of time invested and also giving people what they want. I had planned to sell by word of mouth and have a website also. Do any of you have guitar building down to a one man assembly line type operation for neck thru or bolt on neck guitars? I am needing any help you pros would offer. Backwoods

Heres a tip! If you decide to go for it and chisel out a neck pocket, do it in a piece of lumber not the whole body. This way if you make a mistake you have not ruined a whole body. If you make the pocket perfect you can then join "wings" on your piece that already has the perfect neck pocket (kind of like a neck thru). You could even wait on truing up the side of the center piece (for glueing) until the pocket is cut. Hope this makes sense Backwoods

I have a stupid question, Do you mark the slots on the opposite side of the board? The reason I ask is it seems that you could not see them if they were laying on your table saw. I hope this makes sense, because I have been contemplating purchasing a TS slotting blade. I have also had problems with the fret slotting mitre saw. Backwoods

How difficult a neck thru will be is based for the most part on how well you plan ahead. Then of course how well you can follow those plans. If you are not sure how to glue wings, you don't have a plan yet. This is a good set of tips. A neck thru will become a bit of a handful at points because you can't seperate the body and neck. Again if you plan ahead you can save yourself a lot of headaches. I would say the simplest aspect of a neck thru is gluing the wings. The only part of a neck thru that is easier than a bolt on is the neck/body joint, because it is eliminated. There is also the point that if you don't plan well enough or screw up some aspect of the build. It is done and you can start the process over. Not hard to do, just requires good planning. Don't just start cutting and glueing. It will end up sloppy or trashed. Then again if you enjoy purchasing lots of wood...... I second Setch, or I guess it would be third. Even if the wood was plained when you bought it I would fit it up before making any glue joint, unless your ok with big gaps and lots of glue. Peace and best of luck, Rich ← Fryovanni, I agree wholeheartedly about the glue joint. On my first neck thru I glued the back on and cleaned up the sides on my neck on my table saw. I just dialed my table saw to 0 and made the cuts. I noticed nothing wrong until I later glued the wings on my neck. My table saw was off a few degrees and my wings were perfect on the front of the body but I had .020 gaps on the back. I was able to make the gaps disappearin the finish with alot of work. I built that neck thru totally from raw wood so that is why I was having to clean up the sides. If someone purchases one of the manufactured neck thru blanks they should not have problems on the neck side of the glue joint but they should look out on the wing side. I try to make things turn out the best I can but I can say that I do not forget these mistakes and I rarely duplicate them. I am constantly learning all of the time. The only way to learn how to build great guitars is to learn from mistakes. Backwoods